AI visualiser vs configurator vs visual CPQ

Product configurators and visual CPQ make the customer do the design. An AI visualiser does the design for them.

• A product configurator asks the customer to pick every option, one at a time.
• A visual CPQ asks the customer, or your sales team, to pick every option and then puts a price on it.
• An AI visualiser looks at the customer’s own home, from a photo or a plan, and designs it, like a designer would, with your products, installed and complete, on the photo or in 3D.

In 3D, an AI visualiser includes everything a configurator does. A configurator is a subset of it.

A configurator gives the customer a 3D model of a product and a panel of options: size, colour, material, hardware. Every model and option has to be built by hand before it works. It is good at one thing: making sure the options chosen are valid.

But the customer still has to make every decision, and most of them aren’t designers. A configurator can tell them a combination is allowed. It can’t tell them it’s right for their house.

CPQ stands for configure, price, quote. A visual CPQ is a configurator with a price list attached. It is built to turn a set of options into a quote.

That is useful once the customer already knows what they want. It doesn’t help them get there. Every option still has to be chosen by hand, and every product, option and price has to be modelled before it works. For products that are chosen by how they look on the house, the hard part of the sale happens before CPQ ever starts.

An AI visualiser starts where the customer’s decision starts: with their own home. From a photo or a plan, the AI places your products where they belong, adds every matching product, shows the whole job installed and hands the customer a complete design, on their own photo or in a 3D model the AI builds from photos or drawings. The customer reacts to a finished result instead of building one.

In 3D it also does the configurator’s job: the customer can change the size, colour, material and options of any product, checked against your rules, inside the complete design. Your products come as accurate 3D digital assets, built by our AI modelling engine at no extra cost and yours to use elsewhere. The customer’s space is modelled in real time. And because the design is a real 3D model, it produces shop drawings and professional drawings.

Then it carries the design forward: to a sample, an enquiry, a builder or a stockist, and, with planning and quantities, to a plan that fits and a list of what to order.

Not every brand needs every step. TsquareAI comes as three separate applications, and you choose the ones that fit your products and your sales process: one on its own, or two or three together.

All three share the same foundation: an AI designer, and an AI modelling engine that turns your products into accurate 3D digital assets, included at no extra cost and yours to use elsewhere, and models the customer’s home or space in real time from photos or drawings. Start with one application, and anything you add later builds on the same products and the same model, so nothing has to be redone.

Visualiser: design the look. The AI designs the job on the customer’s own home, on their photo or in 3D, with your products installed and every matching product added. In 3D it does everything a configurator does, inside the whole design.

Planner: design the layout. Planner starts from an address, a floor plan, a photo or measurements from site. The AI models the space and lays out your range on it like a designer would: every module, cabinet, panel or fixture placed to fit the real dimensions, every option checked against your rules. Kitchens, wardrobes, bathrooms, fit-outs and whole homes are designed in 3D, with product selections and draft project documents prepared for your designers and technical team to approve. From the same model it produces shop drawings and professional drawings.

Quantities: count it. Quantities reads the same 3D model and the plans to work out exactly what the job needs: bills of materials, quote drafts and order lines in the format your team and systems use. Every line shows where it came from and the assumptions behind it, and missing or conflicting information is flagged rather than guessed. With your price lists and rules, it prepares one version for your team, with costs and margins, and one for your customers; or it gives quantities only and leaves pricing to your stockists and installers. Your estimators check and sign off every output. From drawings it gives an exact take-off; from photos alone, a fast quantity range for early tenders and quick quotes.

Use them on their own or together. Where you use more than one, the look the customer chose becomes the layout that fits, the drawings your team builds from and the list of what to supply, without redrawing anything. That is the difference from visual CPQ in one line: CPQ prices what the customer picked. TsquareAI can design it, fit it to the plan, draw it, count it and price it, as far as you need it to go.

• If your products are chosen by how they look on the customer’s home, choose an AI visualiser.
• If your customers already know exactly what they want and only need to pick valid options, a configurator will do.
• If the job is pricing a known configuration, a visual CPQ will do.
• If you want customers to go from a photo to a finished design, a plan and a list of what to order, add planning and quantities to the visualiser. If you only need one of those steps, start with that one.

What’s the difference between an AI visualiser and a configurator?

Who does the design. In a configurator the customer picks every option. In an AI visualiser the AI designs the whole job on the customer’s own home. In 3D, an AI visualiser also does everything a configurator does, so the configurator is a subset of it.

Do we need 3D models of our products?

Not from you. Our AI modelling engine builds accurate 3D models of your products, included at no extra cost, and you can use them anywhere else.

What’s the difference between a configurator and a visual CPQ?

A visual CPQ adds a price and a quote to a configurator. The customer still does the design.

Is an AI visualiser a smarter visual CPQ?

It does what a visual CPQ can’t: it designs. Prices can be added where a brand sets them, but the design comes first.

Can it go from a design to a bill of materials?

Yes. With Planner and Quantities, the design is laid out on the real plan and turned into bills of materials, quote drafts and order lines, each line traced to its source, for your team to check and sign off.

Does it have to show prices?

Only if you want it to. It can prepare a costed version for your team and a customer version, or give quantities only and leave pricing to your stockists and installers.

TsquareAI builds and operates AI applications for building-product brands, merchants and builders. Visualiser · Planner · Quantities · Book a call